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Saturday, February 04, 2006

Impatient Patient

On Friday I got the results of my medical tests for the mysterious laryngitis. My bloodwork and MRI were fine, but the CT scan of my throat showed that I have some nodules in the right lobe of my thyroid and that the lobe is enlarged. The MRI ruled out any neurological problems, so now we're focusing on the thyroid. Nodules in the thyroid don't necessarily mean anything: A lot of people have them, and in fact don't even know it. But this means I get to have a few more tests.

If we end up ruling out the thyroid, which I hope we do, then I'll end up with the normally dreaded idiopathic (unknown cause) label. In this case the vocal cord palsy and subsequent laryngitis aren't anything to be overly concerned about — except that I can't talk well and that I choke if I don't drink in just the right way. Sometimes these things resolve on their own, also for unknown reasons. So we'd watch me for six months or so to see if it does resolve, but if it doesn't resolve after six months to a year, then we'll look at other treatment options.

So, thyroid or not, I suspect the laryngitis is here to stay for a while.

So now I'm off on my next round of testing. First, on Monday I'm getting an ultrasound of my thyroid to get a better picture of the nodules. Also, I'm having a chest X ray that day, mostly as a precaution I think, just to be sure nothing odd is going on in my lungs.

I'm also going to have something called a thyroid uptake/scan, which is a two-day test. I go in the first day and get a scan of my thyroid and then take an iodine pill. Then I come back 24 hours later and get another scan of my thryoid after the iodine has reached it. One hitch, though, is that I just had a CT scan on Monday, and they injected me with iodine for that procedure. So before we can do the thyroid uptake/scan, we have to wait until the iodine clears out of my body — which unfortunately will take four weeks!!!! So I have a pair of appointments at the end of February for that.

I'll see my doctor again this Wednesday to get the results of the ultrasound and chest X ray, but I think the real test is the one I have to wait four weeks for. I am not one who waits for things like this patiently — but then, who is? — so I think February is going to be a long month!